Last and First Men, abridged edition

A dazzling work of science fiction to which Dune, the Foundation trilogy, and 2001: A Space Odyssey owe a major debt.

Narrated telepathically by one of the Last Men, Olaf Stapledon’s epic history of the future caused a literary sensation when it first appeared in 1930. Over the course of two billion years, it seems, ever more alien versions of humankind will rise and fall — developing every sort of utopian and dystopian civilization only to descend into savagery again and again, until eventu...